From the Managing Editor: Our nuanced approach to story pitches

News coverage of active wars and humanitarian crises draws intense scrutiny as those who empathize with the suffering seek to ensure their voices are heard and shared. 

Those working in the world of social purpose are highly impacted and deeply empathetic to these causes.

Social media posting and online commentary on recent world conflicts have proven explosive and divisive.

At Future of Good, we have been intentionally selective about the way we cover active conflicts, working to ensure we can serve our audience with the insights and knowledge they seek in a productive and helpful approach. 

Future of Good focuses on social impact journalism in Canada for Canadian changemakers. While we often cover breaking news in this space, we are not a traditional news website. 

Like other news organizations, we apply rigour when reviewing coverage plans and use an additional lens of our niche, audience, capacity and coverage. 

Each story idea or pitch is measured against our key questions: Why does it matter to our audience? What is the story’s crux? What will our audience learn? Will it make our audience smarter about that topic? 

Recently, our team members have heard rumours of suppressed voices at Future of Good in the social impact sector relating to the Israel-Hamas war. 

We reached out to Jane Rabinowicz, Chief Program Officer at the McConnell Foundation. On Jan. 22, we ran an op-ed Q&A from that conversation. It drew plenty of attention and some negative reactions. Some readers felt we should have included more diverse voices if we were to provide a podium for opinion. 

Our online story pitch form is available 24/7 to those wishing to send us op-ed submissions. We strongly encourage diverse voices and opinions to submit.

An important point to note is that all newsrooms weigh all news tips and pitches on their own merits. Some stories make it through the pitch stage but are spiked once the initial reporting determines there is not enough for a story. 

Some stories are held until details can be substantiated through further reporting, evidence, freedom of information (FOI) requests or new quotes.

Sometimes, editors decide to run stories or op-eds and pursue follow-up stories or additional op-eds to broaden the coverage scope. 

One of our readers who read the Jan. 22 piece asked to submit an op-ed of their own to ensure Palestinian voices were also given a platform, and that was published today.

Our newsroom is committed to upholding the tenets of journalism while providing our audience with actionable and relevant social impact news. 

We also struggle to do this work with rigour, kindness and truth while bearing witness to humanitarian crises, climate change, and the myriad of issues we each witness through our lenses of intersectionality.  

As always, please report news tips here – with your name or with anonymity. Pitch to us here, and you can send messages of kindness or complaints here.

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